An undercover agent with the department of injustice (outside church walls)

Thursday, January 31, 2008

employer spotlight

This first ever (and possibly last ever) edition of Employer Spotlight is designed to give praise to an employer within the fair mother city that goes above and beyond the call of the employer.

I’ve long been a critic of the fair mother city and her below-average wages. And for those of you keeping score, you are well aware that my conspiracy theories for this bad pay and lack of benefits are: christians/church-goers own the local businesses. And more than often, christians, wealthy or not, are cheap-asses (ask any local wait-person what the worst shift to wait tables is: Sunday lunch - church crowd).

So when I run across a rare encounter of what I’d consider a true Christ-like business owner, praise is due.

Recently, I completed a temporary job with a local storage company owned by a follower of Jesus. Several other temporary employees and myself signed on for $7.50 an hour. That’s a common wage here in the fair mother city. And it was fair for the work we were expected to do. I knew what I was getting in to, so no complaints here.

Within a week our pay jumped to $8.50 an hour. I don’t know why. Maybe we were doing good work. An unannounced raise after one week is shocking to me after working for Son and Dad for nearly a year with no change in pay.

Then about halfway through this temp job, our boss (who often labored with us, another rarity) casually announced that at the rate we were going, we’d finish this job way ahead of schedule. And if that happens, he’d pay us a bonus.

That’s right. He charged the client an overestimated amount for our labor. And if we finished early, he was going to pay us the money that we would have earned had we worked the time length he estimated.

Here on the agent b files, it’s all too easy to report on injustice and nonsense witnessed throughout the christian community in the fair mother city. It’s nice to spotlight the positive for once.

case profile #000728b

As an undercover operative for the CEO of the universe, I am strategically embedded within the poverty culture of Abilene, TX (the fair mother city). This blog contains my reports, discoveries, observations, and confessions. My identity must remain concealed due to passages in The Book under Matt. 6:1-4. The names on this blog have been changed to protect the guilty.